North Korea’s Kim Jong Un Reported Dead on China’s Version of Twitter
It’s been a long week for the United States intelligence community. Last week, there were rumors on China’s equivalent to Twitter, Weibo, that Kim Jong Un, the new leader of North Korea, was killed during an assassination in Beijing. The U.S. has been looking for any signs that Kim Jong Un might be dead; however, there has been no evidence to support such rumors.
While a source in the United States says that one can never been 100 percent certain if Kim Jong Un was dead, there is a lot for North Korea to lose if it was true. Because China is such a closed society, it makes it difficult to verify any information about these types of news stories.
The United States believes that this is nothing more than an attempt to disrupt South Korea’s economy, which is in a very fragile state at this time. If South Korea believes this to be a means to an end in terms of the fighting, then there could be some repercussions. However, there has been no movement by the North Korean military or other activities that provide any evidence.
Kim just became North Korea’s “Supreme Leader” in December of last year. His father, Kim Jong Il, passed away at sixty nine years of age. He had been in charge of North Korean since 1994.
There are no reports of Kim’s death in either state media in South Korea or China; however, there has also not been any of it talked about the fact that this rumor is not true. Should the United States be right in the findings of their investigation, most media figure that Kim is simply avoiding the spotlight for a few days. It is not known who would replace Kim if he were to die young.
